Ebola Outbreak Kills More Than 5,300 People in DR Congo

Photo: AFP via Al Jazeera (May 2026, Ituri Ebola response)

More than 5,300 people have now died in Africa's latest Ebola outbreak, health officials say, with the Democratic Republic of the Congo hit hardest. The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention puts the toll at 5,376, and more than half of the people known to have caught the virus have died.

The outbreak was declared in mid-May, and it is now the largest Ebola outbreak the DRC has ever recorded. Al Jazeera reported the latest Africa CDC figures on Tuesday: 5,372 deaths in the DRC itself, and two each in Kenya and Uganda, from 10,444 confirmed cases across the three countries.

Those numbers hide a grim detail. The death rate is now above 50 percent, which means that for every two people confirmed with the virus, more than one has died. Health officials say the rise in the reported rate came after a review of records in Ituri province, the heart of the outbreak, added hundreds of earlier deaths that had not been counted.

Ituri and North Kivu, in the conflict-hit east of the DRC, remain the centre of the crisis. The virus spreads through contact with bodily fluids and causes haemorrhagic fever, and health workers in the east have been working through war, poor roads and, in recent weeks, a strike over months of unpaid wages, according to reports of the outbreak.

What makes this outbreak harder to fight is the strain itself. It is the rare Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, and there is no approved vaccine or treatment for it. Vanguard, citing AFP and Africa CDC data, reported that clinical trials have now begun with the Ervebo vaccine, which works against the more common Zaire strain, but that is not yet a proven shield against Bundibugyo.

The virus has already crossed borders more than once. Uganda recorded 20 cases, almost all in people who had travelled from the DRC, before being declared Ebola-free in August. Kenya recorded its first ever Ebola cases in October, with nine infections and two deaths. Nigeria reported an imported case in October, its first in more than a decade, but no deaths, and two suspected cases in its northeast later tested negative. France also reported a single case in July, in a health worker who had returned from the DRC.

In plain terms, this is now the second largest Ebola outbreak ever recorded worldwide, behind only the 2013 to 2016 West Africa epidemic. It has spread to eight of the DRC's 26 provinces and 67 health zones, and health authorities are still recording dozens of new infections each day.

The wider world is starting to react. The United States has tightened travel rules, with new screening and boarding requirements for travellers who have been in the DRC in the past 21 days, taking effect late on Tuesday. For families in Ituri, though, the urgent need is simpler: pay for health workers, safe care centres, and a way to reach sick people in areas where fighting makes every journey risky.

The outbreak is a reminder of how a health crisis in one region can reach far beyond it, much like other world stories this week, from the bombing of a Ukraine aid centre that killed 24 people to the US cutting South Africa and Rwanda from its duty-free trade deal and the crackdown reported in Zambia after its August election.

The key figures:

• 5,376 deaths in total, 5,372 in the DRC and two each in Kenya and Uganda
• 10,444 confirmed cases across the three countries
• More than 50 percent death rate among confirmed cases
• Eight provinces and 67 health zones affected in the DRC
• Mid-May 2026, when the DRC declared its 17th Ebola outbreak

Sources

• Al Jazeera, Ebola outbreak kills more than 5,300 people in DR Congo
• Vanguard (AFP/Africa CDC), Ebola outbreak kills more than 5,300 people
• TOLOnews, Ebola death toll reaches 5,372 in DR Congo

What happens next is the next Africa CDC update, and whether the new vaccine trials and the US travel rules slow a virus that is still spreading in the east of the DRC.

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